Food is more than just something you eat in order to nourish your body and a meal is more than just time spent around a table in order to surpass time. Sharing a meal with your loved ones can be a really special time where you can make long-lasting memories. You may not know it at the time, but that one special meal can mean the world to the ones sharing it with you. According to Erin Leonard, her mom’s apple pie was an important staple in her life and was able to get her through the tough times.
“I would say this dessert brought not only my friends together but also my family. It brought us joy even in hard or happy times and distracted us from reality for a while and we could just sit and eat some apple pie. And I think everyone appreciated that about the apple pie. Something as simple as an apple pie can make life just a little easier for a moment” (Erin Leonard).
For Erin, apple pie was something her mom made quite often growing up for her, her sister and her dad, but once her parents split up she no longer made it as much. So now when she makes that special pie it brings them back to those times back when they were all one big happy family. Erin wasn’t the only one that had a favorite meal that brought others comfort and joy. According to Maddie Shaw, her dad made a special mac and cheese with her and her brother growing up that had great importance to her family.
“Moving to Maine brought experiences into my life that I never would have been able to go through if we stayed in Maryland, the enjoyment and delight of making the mac and cheese dish is one of these. The savory flavors that are all wrapped into a single bite, the creamy and crunchy textures working together for the ideal texture, and the memories that come along with it. This meal is something that I share with my entire family and we all have positive memories that go along with it” (Maddie Shaw).
For Maddie, when she was younger her family made a move to Maine and while she, her brother and her mom lived there full time, her dad had to commute back and forth to Maryland for work so he only spent the weekends with them. This was hard on them, but something that made it worthwhile was that when their dad came home to them they would make their special mac and cheese together. I think that this is so special because both Erin and Maddie have special connections with their favorite meals and I think that it’s a great example of why cooking and sharing meals with your loved ones is so important.
It’s so interesting to me how fewer people are willing to cook their own meals nowadays. For so many people, cooking with loved ones brings a great deal of happiness and a lot of memories, but now people rather just go out to eat, pick up fast food, or purchase premade meals that you can just stick in the microwave or oven with no real cooking required. According to Michael Pollan, cooking shows are no longer about teaching the audience to cook, but instead about selling us pre-cooked meals by these chefs or prepping us on how to order these fancy meals when we go out.
“TV dinner: a simulacrum of home cooking that is sold on TV and designed to be eaten in front of the TV. True, in the case of the Swanson rendition, at least you get something that will fill you up; by comparison, the Food Network leaves you hungry, a condition its advertisers must love. But in neither case is there much risk that you will get off the couch and actually cook a meal” (Michael pollan).
With these quick and easy meals, you are not only giving up healthier and more delicious options, but also the means to spend time around a table making memories with your family and or friends.
‘“Cooking gave us not just the meal but also the occasion: the practice of eating together at an appointed time and place. This was something new under the sun, for the forager of raw food would likely have fed himself on the go and alone, like the animals. (Or, come to think of it, like the industrial eaters we’ve become, grazing at gas stations and skipping meals.) But sitting down to common meals, making eye contact, sharing food, all served to civilize us; “around that fire,” Wrangham says, “we became tamer.”’
Cooking is a multipurpose occasion that brings us together, but by getting rid of that we are losing so much more. Nowadays people are getting lazier and would rather save their time and energy by not cooking and just purchasing these foods. Some might say this is due to these food networks evolving into more entertainment outlets than cooking teachers, but others will argue that it is just no longer a necessary task.
‘“My grandmother really loves to cook and bake and so does my aunt, but my mom was never really was to passionate about it like they were. My mom was only good at certain recipes like her apple pie and she kind of stuck to those few recipes. My mom grew up with two very passionate cookers/bakers, so she has a lot of favorite meals and desserts. Her all-time favorite was her mom’s homemade chicken noodle soup because “she always used to make it when I was sick, and it always managed to make me feel so much better and distract me from what I was feeling. It was also special to me because I knew she made it”’ (Erin Leonard).
Before I asked my dad any other questions or explained anything about the essay I am writing, I asked him why he thinks this dish is my favorite. “Because it is full of carbs!” He laughed and then finished with, “No… it is something you have had since you were little and you don’t like change. We have made it together the same way for years, if I change one thing in the recipe you can tell. My next elevation of it is adding some lobster to it, that is the only change you’ll eat!” (Maddie Shaw)
